Workmen's advocate., 1887-04-02
A SOLID PLATFORM
SOCIALISTS RECOGNIZE THE
 LABOR PARTY ONLY.
All Other Political Parties Reaction. ary-ReasOns for Socialism. Radical Political Demands
 for the Present-A
 Living Issue.

As the WORKMEN's ADVOCATE is continually getting new readers, it is considered well to place before those who have never seen 1t, the Plat form of the Socialistic Labor Party, in order that our new friends may know what our most dangerous ene- mics know and fear
 The enemies of Socialism do not fear the few thousand Socialists in their physical capacity, but they do fear the sound doctrines they preach; they fear the exposure of their rob ping system; they fear to have the people iaroused to a knowledge of their degraded position.
 Read this Platform and ponder over it. Don't take everything for granted, but use your reason and judgment. When you have decided, let us know what you think about it.:
 PLATFORM.
 Labor being the self evident creator of all wealth and civilization, it is but equitable that those who perform all labor and thus create all wealth should enjoy the product of their toil
 But this is rendered impossible by the modern system of production, which, since the discovery of steam power and since the general introduction of ma chimes, is in all branches of industry carried with such gigantic means and appliances as but few are able to possess.
 The present industrial system is CO., operative in one respect only, which is: That not, as in former times, the indi- vidual works alone for his own account, but dozens, hundreds and thousands of men work together in shops, in mines, on huge farms and lands, cooperating ac- cording to the most efficient division of labor, while the fruits of this cO,opera- tive labor are not reaped by the workers themselves, but are in great measure appropriated by the owners of the means of production.
 This system, by gradually extinguish- ing the middle class of people, necessari- ly separates society into two classes: The class of the wage workers, and that of the great bosses.
 It brings forth as its natural out growths:
 The planlessness and reckless rate of production.
 The waste of human and natural forces.
 The commercial and industrial crises. The constant uncertainty of the ma terial existence of the wage workers.
 The misery of the laboring masses.
 The accumulation of wealth in the hands of few.
 These conditions, which under the present industrial system cannot but be- come more and more aggravated, Is ln- consistent with the interests of mankind, with the principles of justice and true democracy, as they destroy those rights which the Declaration of Independence of the United States holds to be inalien- able in all men: The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
 These conditions shorten and imperil life by want and misery. They destroy liberty because the economical subjec- ton of the wage-workers to the owners of the means of production immediately leads to their political dependence upon the same sources, and finally frnstrate the pursuit of happiness, which is never possible when life and personal liberty are constantly endangered
 In order, therefore, to abolish these humiliating conditions, we strive to introduce the peTect system of cooper atiye productlon-that is, we demand that the workers obtain the undivided product of their toll.
 This being only feasible by securing tc the workers the control of the means oi production,
 We demand:
 That the land, the instruments of pro duction (machines, factories, etc., and capital, the product of labor, become the common property of the whole peo pie: and,
 That all production be organized co operatively, and be carried on under the direction of the commonwealth; and alsc the cooperative distribution of the pro ducts in accordance with the service ren dered, and with the just needs of the in dividuals.
 And to realize our demands, we strive by an proper means to gain control o the political power.
 The Sociallstic Labor Party claims tn, title, Labor Party" because it recog